Kelly Davis doesn’t just write the news. She reads it too. (Imagine!) The CityBeat associate editor’s devotion to local current events helped earn an almost perfect score and win last week’s annual VOSD News Quiz.
Davis got 15 out of 16 questions right, only missing the number of City Council members who were indicted in the last decade. (It’s three, in case you’re scoring at home.)
The grand prize — a copy of our book “Our People, Our Places: A San Diego Photo Story” and a voiceofsandiego.org T-shirt — are now on their way to the CityBeat office.
Second place goes to Erik Hanson, who got 14 right, and third place to Patrick Roustan Jr., who got 13. They’ll get T-shirts.
And honorable mention goes to Lee Swanson, who won last year’s contest and only missed winning third place this time around because he emailed his results an hour after Roustan.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all who played and put up with my valiant attempts at rapier-like wit, whatever that means.
The answers to the quiz are in bold below, followed by details and links to news stories from our site and elsewhere if you’d like to learn more.
1. If you are an elected Democratic or Republican in the county and endorse someone for San Diego mayor who’s a member of the other party, what will happen to you?
a. It’s allowed, but you’ll receive a sternly worded letter
b. It’s not allowed, and you’ll lose your party’s support in your own race
c. It’s allowed, but your name will be purposefully misspelled on the next primary ballot
d. It’s not allowed, and you will be expelled from your party
Yup, the local political parties are playing hardball, a fact that raised eyebrows because some local Democrats aren’t endorsing Rep. Bob Filner for mayor. For more, click here.
2. An unlikely local town spent millions in urban-renewal money – designed to help rundown neighborhoods – on projects like a promenade, an animal care facility, a theater and a tennis center. Name the place.
a. Rancho Santa Fe
b. Del Mar
c. La Jolla
d. Coronado
The Crown City, known for its sandy beaches and sandblasted faces, takes advantage of urban renewal funds. For more, click here.
3. In January, the son of a former Escondido city councilman admitted that he used a fake name when he tattled to the media about a council candidate’s DUI arrest. What pseudonym did he use?
a. Heywood Jablome
b. Billy Dingleberry
c. I.P. Freely
d. Amanda Lovinkiss
Billy Dingleberry was the fake name. Perhaps Ivana Tinkle and Seymour Butz were unavailable. For more, click here.
4. Questions arose about whether school board member Shelia Jackson lived at the address she claimed or at another residence outside the district she represented. Reporters saw her leave an apartment complex on several mornings, taking a street whose name was surprising. What was the name of the street?
a. Shelia Driveway
b. Jackson Drive
c. Shelia Jackson Court
d. School Board Expressway
We were never able to find any evidence that the street’s name was connected to Shelia Jackson in any way. For more, click here.
5. Supervisor Bill Horn claimed that he went to jail to support the civil rights movement and worked for a close aide to Martin Luther King Jr.
A spokesman for Horn said two men could corroborate part of the story, but “unfortunately, both of those men have passed away, and short of a séance, there’s no way to confirm with them the events of a half century ago.”
No séance required, just a telephone. They’re both still alive, actually. One is a former football star. Who is he?
a. Jim Brown
b. Rosey Grier
c. Deacon Jones
d. Willie Lanier
“I did not know him at all,” Grier said. For more, click here.
6. Former San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy, who resigned in 2005, is out with a new book titled “San Diego’s Judge Mayor.” What’s the book’s subtitle?
a. “How Murphy’s Law Blindsided Leadership With 2020 Vision”
b. “How 2020 Vision and Leadership With Vision Blindsided Murphy’s Law”
c. “How Murphy’s Law Blindsided 2020 Leadership With Vision”
d. “How 2020 Vision and Murphy’s Law Blindsided Leadership”
Oddly, the book’s title is longer than Murphy’s term in office. For more, click here.
7. Mayor Jerry Sanders went on national television in March and touted cutbacks in San Diego, saying 17 percent of city employees had been laid off. Maybe they cut his fact-checkers, since his statistic was faulty. What was the real number at the time, going back to 2007?
a. 2.5 percent
b. Less than 1 percent
c. 1 percent
d. 1.5 percent
Talk about the 99 percent and the 1 percent. For more, click here.
8. What’s the nickname preferred by the new owner of the Union-Tribune?
a. “Papa Doc”
b. “Papa John”
c. “Daddy Dearest”
d. “Papa Doug”
There hasn’t been this much fuss about a big daddy since Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. For more, click here.
9.The liberal wonkette.com blog called a local activist a “numbskull,” “vindictive weirdo” and “a very superior weiner” after the activist created fake Twitter accounts in the names of San Diego politicians. Who’s the activist?
a. San Diego County Democratic chairman Jess Durfee
b. Councilwoman Marti Emerald
c. San Diego County GOP chairman Tony Krvaric
d. County Supervisor Ron Roberts
Hey, he did get called superior, so there’s that. For more, click here.
10. A national advocacy organization rapped San Diego for having few men with a specific trait and warned that the trend could lead to its extinction, “just as we have seen the great decline of women in the state who don’t have lower back tattoos or ‘tramp stamps.’” What’s the trait?
a. Hairy backs
b. Pickup truck ownership
c. Mustaches
d. Those really big round earring things
They had us at “tramp stamps.” For more, click here.
11. A report from the Pew Charitable Trust about city government across the country wrongly declared that no council members had been indicted in San Diego in recent years. How many have been indicted in the last decade (as of earlier today)?
a. Three
b. Two
c. Five
d. Four
You know what they say, three’s company, four’s too many for a normal size prison cell. For more, click here.
12. A PBS documentary series about Prohibition conjured up memories of a 1929 City Hall scandal involving the mayor, the police chief, the American Legion and a big stash of illicit hooch. What was the name of the informal group set up by the legion to get its hands on illegal booze?
a. “Thirst Relief Task Force”
b. “(Pabst) Blue-Ribbon Panel”
c. “Beverage Procurement Board”
d. “Irrigation Committee”
Unfortunately for the conventioneers, there ended up being a bit of a drought. For more, click here.
13. The Omni San Diego Hotel boasts that corporate executives can use part of the adjoining Petco Park for meetings. What part is it?
a. Press box
b. Locker room
c. Luxury boxes
d. Parking lot
It’s got that special C-level eau de jock strap. For more, click here.
14. A famous one-time San Diego resident and his wife were finally reunited in death at Mt. Hope Cemetery on Valentine’s Day. Their remains had long been separated, and it took a court case to bring them together. Who now rests next to his beloved?
a. Silent film actor Harold Lloyd
b. Professional baseball player Ted Williams
c. Mystery author Raymond Chandler
d. Consolidated Aircraft founder Reuben H. Fleet
Now they’re in The Big Sleep together. For more, click here.
15. Two local merchants began offering unusual products via vending machines. What were they selling?
a. Fresh seafood (at Seaport Village)
b. Medical marijuana (at San Diego pot dispensaries)
c. Fish tacos (at Rubio’s locations in Mira Mesa and Mission Valley)
d. Alcohol-free sanitizing wipes and gas masks (at Occupy San Diego)
No word on whether quarters get stuck in these vending machines too. For more, click here.
EXTRA CREDIT: A journalist wrongly claimed that San Diego pedestrians are at risk of being bonked on the head by falling coconuts due to cutbacks in palm tree trimming. In fact, we were only able to confirm the existence of one coconut-bearing tree in the entire city. Where is it?
Answer: You may get bonked at the San Diego Zoo. For more, click (or bonk) here.
Please contact Randy Dotinga directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.